Will you be in compliance with Canada’s new anti-spam legislation come July 1?

If you have not already taken steps to prepare for the effects that Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) will have on your company’s communications efforts it is not too late.

The new legislation, which takes effect July 1, will be one of the strictest anti-spam policies in the world and will significantly affect the communications efforts of businesses of all sizes. The new regulations are part of an effort to crack down on spam, hacking, spyware, fraud, address harvesting and the invasion of privacy.

Commercial electronic messages, or CEMs, are electronic message that encourage participation in a commercial activity, regardless of whether there is an expectation of profit. If a sender is not in compliance, penalties can reach a maximum of $10-million for each violation. The amount is determined based on several factors set out in the legislation and there doesn’t appear to be any grace period — the CASL website notes it is enforceable and compliance is required as soon as the regulation comes into effect.

While CASL’s stipulations may appear stifling upon a thorough review, small businesses shouldn’t feel defeated. Rather, they should take this opportunity to revamp their digital marketing strategies and build better, more targeted contact lists.

The new law will require the following:

Obtaining express consent This means that the recipient has given the sender direct permission to communicate with them: They must have taken an affirmative action to opt-in. For example, subscribing to an email list constitutes express consent. The days of providing the option to “opt out” rather than getting their “opt in” are over.

Compliance with identification and unsubscribe mechanism requirements Businesses must provide an unsubscribe option on all CEMs that is valid for 60 days after the message is sent. This must be accessible so the recipient can easily unsubscribe. Senders must also meet the identification requirements, which entail clearly identifying themselves, and providing a way for the recipient to contact them.

Replacing implied consent with express consent by July 1, 2017 Implied consent refers to an existing business or non-business relationship between you and the recipient of the CEM or that the means for direct communication has been indirectly expressed. This can encompass: “Business card” consent, where someone has provided an email address and not indicated they don’t want to receive CEMs; or somebody’s email address being clearly published for viewing; not accompanied by a statement saying they do not want unsolicited CEMs, and related to the person’s role or business.

It’s important to note that a message designed to obtain consent is itself a CEM under CASL. This means that if you do not have implied or express consent before July 1, 2014, a message of this nature will violate the law.

Here are the steps you need to take now to not only better prepare your business for CASL, but also improve your outreach and marketing efforts:

Check out your current contact list Determine if you have express or implied consent to send CEMs. If you don’t have consent, they probably aren’t qualified leads to begin with. Look at this as opportunity to clean up your list and ensure it consists of only qualified leads that are more likely to purchase from you.

Re-engage cold leads with an email asking if they still want to receive CEMs from you, and provide an easy way for them to consent while taking the opportunity to ask for other relevant information, such as confirming what they are most interested in hearing about or if they have any questions you can answer.

Work on getting express consentbefore July 1 One way to accomplish this is to email existing contacts asking them to provide their consent, while indicating the value to them of receiving CEMs from your company. You can offer incentives such as coupons, discounts, free audits or services, and so on to get that consent.

Adopt the inbound marketing methodology Inbound marketing is focused on attracting prospects by providing great content. People voluntarily sign up (read: explicitly opt-in) to receive content and marketing materials from your business, meaning that from the beginning, you have their express consent to send them CEMs. Furthermore, many marketing automation systems used to track and deliver inbound marketing have list validity confirmation features, which enable you to ensure you have obtained consent via a series of checks.

The bottom line is contacts that have consented are more likely to buy from you, so being compliant means you are eliminating cold or dead leads.

Furthermore, you have the opportunity to be creative when seeking express consent in the coming month: Nothing like this has been required before, so there is a blank canvas to flex your marketing muscles.

In the end, delivering CEMs exclusively to those who consent means your highly targeted marketing messages are reaching those who want to receive them, which will ultimately improve the effectiveness of your marketing.

Jeff Quipp is an expert on digital marketing. He is the founder and CEO of Search Engine People Inc. (SEP), Canada’s largest digital marketing firm, which has been on the PROFIT 100 ranking of Canada’s Fastest Growing Companies for the past five consecutive years and named one of PROFIT Magazine’s 50 Fastest Growing Companies in the Greater Toronto Area. Follow Jeff on Twitter at @jquipp or connect with him on Google+.